I wouldn’t have known
And nothing could’ve taught
Me what to call love
And what to not
I would’ve gone on
Miserable or mindless
Hysterical or hapless
Forever if you hadn’t, I guess,
Barged into my court
With a smile and a question
And made me and my poems
Your own without correction
I like to think I was broken
Just as I know you were
But that’s just me
Romanticizing my hurt
I was blank, unwritten
Barely literate, barely smitten
I hadn’t experienced love
I hadn’t been bitten
Like I am now
Like an uncultured ape
Who found a princess
And his mouth agape
When you gave me your all,
Entrusted me with yourself
That’s when I grew
Up and I could tell
The difference between
My infatuations and love
That’s when I knew
I was a frog in a well
I had only ever fallen
in love with myself
Only ever smelt
What I wanted to smell
And then be surprised
Hysterical, miserable
When it wouldn’t turn out
The way I foretell
And you, you put your everything
In a box and shipped it to me
You told me you were mine
Forever in heaven or hell
And I knew,
I knew what I’d never
I knew love,
I knew being together
“You are mine as I am yours”
To feel it alone is nothing at all
But in the sharing of that belief
is what I know as love, that’s all
